Looking Back- Melanie Fiona Cold Piece

“I Feel Like Big Sean!” exclaims Melanie Fiona as she stands draped in a snow-white faux mink coat, with both fists raised towards the ceiling like a boxer who just received a decision. On this day in particular, Fiona’s ring is the breath taking Minus 5 Ice Bar in Midtown, Manhattan and she’ll be sparring in 23-degree weather, jabbing camera lenses with charismatic poses. “Canadians are made for this,” quips Fiona confidently when warned of the effects of the lingering cold. – Greg Cally

I love going on Facebook randomly and seeing the memories tab with a dope photo I once took. Over time you forget some of the cool and interesting things you once done. 3 years ago to the day, I did a shoot in one of the most interesting places yet. I had the opportunity to photograph a favorite singer of mines, Melanie Fiona, in a freezing cold, ice bar.

Literally everything from the walls, floor, seating, lighting structures, even the mugs were made of ice. Here and there you saw some type of fur to sit on over the ice, but everything else was sculpted from ice. Looking back, this location was super epic. Not even a week open and Minus 5 Below open their doors to us for this editorial shoot.

The concept came from my partner Greg Cally and I. We wanted to feature Mel and got wind she had a new single coming out soon named Cold Piece. Randomly I remember hearing about a new bar about to open made of complete ice and thought it would be crazy to do a location based shoot there. To that point, all of our editorial shoots for Greg’s site Page31.com had been studio only. I was getting tired of that and definitely wanted to switch up from the sites norm. We found the contact for the bar and after a brief phone call and email, they were on board. Once we secured the location and spoke with Melanie’s management, the ball was moving.